"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman writes. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers—and cows—would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease—America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy ReimanExecutive Vice President

I called and e-mailed the Ben & Jerry's spokesman for comment, but he didn't respond by the time I posted this. I'll put it up later if it comes.

PETA, of course, has a long history of very controversial (and arguably self-defeating) promotional exercises, and my guess is that it's very unlikely they thought Ben & Jerry's would take them seriously, and they were just scrabbling for their share of the evening news. (It's worth noting, of course, that they chose to target Ben & Jerry's and not, say, Breyers or Haagen-Dazs.) What do you think about their latest move? (And, yes, let's get it out of the way, everyone here is aware that by discussing it here on Epi-Log, we are playing into their hands and giving them free publicity.)

I'm torn between disgust and rolling-on-the-floor-laughing. Given the two options for obtaining breast milk in quantities more than sufficient for the babies who ought to be consuming it (outrageous amounts of hormones - BGHr debate, anyone? - and/or constant childbearing), I think even "conventionally" produced cow's milk from an industrialized dairy would be healthier for everyone concerned. Possibly including the cows. And, no, I would not buy this. Actually, Tofutti tastes pretty good; the vanilla has a slightly beany flavor reminiscent of coffee ice cream, which I enjoy, and the chocolate is great.

play_with_food 07:07:50 AM on 09/26/08

This is ludicrous! So we trade mistreated cows for banks of women hooked to breast pumps? These people are not of this world!

vellal 05:39:54 PM on 09/25/08

Bisbee- that was too funny.

everythingorganic 01:56:03 PM on 09/25/08

i see peta's point, but isn't breast milk very expensive? huge companies that mass produce large quantities of product usually like to cut costs and use cheaper ingredients, usually sacrificing quality. often there isn't the supply for the demand of the better product.

let's say B&J were to switch to organic goat's milk for their ice cream... that's not that easy to come by. i'm sure human breast milk would be harder to come by.

we can show what we support with our dollars. if we aren't a fan of factory farmed dairy, show so by not giving them your money. that's the best we can do. i will put money on the fact that B&J would not switch to human breast milk. it'd be interesting if they introduced a human breast milk flavour, but they'd never overturn their whole stock to it.

Regardless of if people would eat ice cream made from breastmilk or not, no one could *afford* to *buy* it.

bisbee704 11:03:21 AM on 09/25/08

Udderly ridiculous!

Chocolatl 10:29:14 AM on 09/25/08

Awesome publicity stunt? PETA couldn't have made themselves more of a laughing stock if they'd deliberately set out to do so. Everybody I know is saying, "How stupid can you get?" Good publicity for Ben & Jerry's, though.

letisharice 10:11:25 AM on 09/25/08

Have the PETA people considered the diet of the human breast milk donor? This doesn't make sense. Awesome publicity stunt though.

johannadickson 10:10:18 AM on 09/25/08

I read this on Jezebel yesterday. Ben & Jerry's issued a really funny response to it.

I don't know much about making ice cream, but several of the commentors on Jezebel pointed out that it would be impossible to make ice cream out of breast milk. That the formula wouldn't work. Not to mention that I can honestly not see a single person digging into ice cream made from a stranger's milk. Furthermore, how do they plan on producing the breast milk in large qualities. That leads me to a lot of questions about what would likely be the unethical treatment of humans. This is just another reason I find PETA utterly despicable.